


We Are Echoes of Each Other

by captain_trashmouth



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Ficlet, M/M, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-07
Updated: 2016-08-07
Packaged: 2018-07-29 20:26:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7698283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captain_trashmouth/pseuds/captain_trashmouth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After he falls from the helicarrier, after he's dragged from the Potomac, after help arrives and he's taken to the hospital, Steve dreams.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We Are Echoes of Each Other

It’s been a long time since he’s felt anything this good. It’s like his mind had forgotten, but his body always remembered what it was like to be touched like this. Hands haven’t even made contact yet, but he could feel the disturbance in the air, charged and heavy. His skin is buzzing. Maybe it’s the pain, or maybe it’s the electricity that permeates space between their bodies where they lie tangled up on the filthy duvet of the pay-by-the-hour hotel room. He can’t remember how long they’ve been here. It’s been a week a day seven hours fuck, he just doesn’t remember. His mind is racing but the thoughts are all crawling ants, television static. It’s peaceful. There are no demands here, only the gentle contact of hands, one warm, one cold, over his chest.

A finger trails across his chest. He thinks it might be made of metal.

A man is speaking. His voice sounds like he’s swallowed gravel. It sounds like the passage of time, like Red Hook in summer, like a sniper rifle firing, like a train as it drives through the snow. It sounds like all the homes Steve has ever known. His ears drink up the sound like it’s water and his entire life is a desert. “I found God, you know. He looked just like you. He said my name.”

He feels his eyebrows bunch together. The space behind his nose burns and he doesn’t know why. “You weren’t even lookin’ for God.” His companion scoffs in response.

He rolls his head loose on its axis to turn to look at the man lying next to him. A sheen of sweat coats his face, dark hair falling damp over his forehead. He smells like blood and leather. His movements are slow, the slide of heavy tactical gear against Steve’s bare skin. His eyes are wild and his face is simultaneously old and young, but eternal. He’s seen it before, knows it like the back of his own hands, skin as familiar as his own but marked with scars that he’s never had a chance to map out. The contact points between their bodies, where legs entwine and chests press together in the dark, are live wires. Everything is so much. It’s too much. He’s burning alive.

“Did you find the Devil, too?” Steve feels the question leave his lips before he’s even formed the phrase. He can’t remember what words are, the warm breath against his neck is too distracting. They are too far apart, but too close together. They roll away from each other to lie on their backs.

“The Devil has many faces, Steven. You know that. Cut off one of them… Blah, blah, blah...” The Winter Soldier’s face crinkles in what could either be a grimace or a laugh. Steve can’t tell. The angle is wrong. It’s all wrong, and distortion starts to creep in on the edges of his vision.

“Where are we?”

“You don’t remember? We are where we’ve always been.”

“Cut the cryptic shit.”

“You know I can’t do that. I can’t remember how.”

Steve barks a laugh. “You don’t remember anything. Your brain is empty. Why don’t you have room for me?”

The Winter Soldier looks at him, sadness carving lines deep into his face. “I’ve got my own crimes to pay off, Steven. You can’t expect me to remember all of yours.”

Steve rolls quietly to his side, and strokes the back of his knuckles down the other man’s cheek before pushing his hair off of his forehead. “You held my hand while you pulled the trigger. I know you did it for me. I never had to ask you to. You followed me, now it’s my turn to follow you.”

“Who’s talking cryptic shit now, Steven?” There’s a color to his words, a tone that Steve can’t identify. It’s like he’s never heard it before, but he can tell that the Winter Soldier is smiling. The edges of his vision are fraying even worse. It’s like the world is falling apart and soon, all he’ll have left is a pile of disconnected fibers in his hands.

“I loved you, you know.” He whispers it like it’s a promise, a solemn proclamation of something that will echo forever. That phrase, previously unspoken, has already echoed across a century. Some people bring their lovers flowers, some people write them notes. Steve crashed a plane into the Arctic to manifest his grief. Where James had gone, he could not follow so he chose to build his own bridge.

“You’re a fool with a penchant for making yourself the sacrificial lamb.”

“I loved you. You were everything.” Steve’s voice takes on a desperate edge, sensing that they are careening toward the end of their time here. There is nothing he can do to stop it.

“Well, that’s your own cross to bear, sweetheart. Sorry I can’t carry it for you. My hands are full.” The Winter Soldier sits up and swings his legs off the bed. In one hand, he holds a pistol, and in the other, he holds a torch. Steve isn’t sure where it came from and he thinks it means something but he can't be bothered to think about it now.

“Will you come back?” Steve struggles to sit up, but he’s choking on his own words. He’s pressed flat to the mattress, the weight of his own body too much in the moment.

“I always come back to you, don't I, doll? I’m like a fuckin’ boomerang.” The Winter Soldier laughs softly as he runs his flesh hand through his dirty hair, somehow streaking more blood through it. The sound carries no light to it. There is no happiness in it.

“That shit ain't funny, Buck. Will you come back?”

“You have to go, Steven. The sun’s coming up. They are waiting for you.” The Winter Soldier presses a soft kiss to his forehead before he slips out of the door, and out into the pale light of dawn.  


  


Steve awakes in a hospital bed. A Marvin Gaye song is playing.

**Author's Note:**

> I listen to too much Halsey okay


End file.
